Meanwhile, a signal failure at James Street station triggered delays across MerseyRail, infuriating hundreds of commuters stranded on the Wirral.

A spokeswoman for MerseyRail confirmed the failure was fixed at around 8.30am, but said services were delayed by excess congestion for a further 45 minutes.

"It appears there was a signal failure around James Street Station at approximately 5.30am, and that did have an affect on the whole of the Wirral line,” she said.

"It was down for about two and half hours, but has now been fixed and services are now running as normal. We expect a little bit of disruption until about 9.15 as congestion eases on the line."

Commenting on delays to national train lines around Lime Street, Northern Rail said: “It was an overrunning engineering project that was meant to complete work on track renewal. That should have finished at 5.30am, but was delayed.

“”We we’re running three services an hour, when the usual would be five. So there’s a slight reduction in terms of services."

Angry commuters described scenes of “total chaos” at Lime Street following the announcement of upto 13 cancellations between 6am and 10:00am.

Azza Harrison said on Twitter: “I can’t believe you can just cancel trains like that, and it seem to happen all too often. The service is shocking.”

Another stranded traveller wrote: “It seems at the moment there is one single commuter train heading out yo Manchester this am. Total chaos.”